With Nova Scotia as well as the rest of Canada's population turning gray, there is an urgent need to revise the province's outdated laws on incapacitated residents, said Nova Scotia Health Minister Chris d'Entremont. He is pushing for a legislation that would permit residents to appoint another person to make vital decisions concerning personal care if he becomes incapacitated.

Other Canadian provinces had gone ahead and made one. Alberta had a personal care directives law since 1997, British Columbia enacted one in 2000 and New Brunswick passed the Infirm Persons Act recently

Some 24,000 Afghan women die every year while giving birth, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is working with the government and other partners to reduce maternal mortality and improve the overall health of women and girls in the war-torn nation.

"The biggest challenge that Afghan women face is maternal health and high maternal mortality," Ramesh Penumaka, UNFPA Country Representative in Afghanistan, told reporters in the capital Kabul on Tuesday

Four studies analyzed by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire-Durham indicated childhood spanking has links to adult sexual problems. In particular, children who underwent spanking, slapping, hitting or being thrown objects at had higher chances of physically or verbally abusing a sexual partner as an adult.

It could also lead to a tendency to engage in high risk sexual behavior and masochistic sex including having sexual arousal from spanking

The apparent relaxing effect of smoking is a coping mechanism for young people who may have experienced physical maltreatment or abuse during their younger days. In coming up with that conclusion, a research team from the Duke University Medical Center trailed 15,000 youths between 15 to 22.

The exposure to physical violence need not be a personal assault, it could include witnessing beatings and other forms of body abuses. Such incidents often spurs a young person to start smoking within a year

The United States joined the government of Tanzania, the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria by funding the distribution of 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanians. The financial assistance was announced by U.S. President George Bush after he visited on Monday a bed net factory and a hospital with malaria patients.

Funding for the mosquito net project will come from a five-year $1.2 billion program initiated in 2005 to reduce by 50 percent malaria deaths in 15 African nations. Bush said vouchers were distributed for 5.2 million mosquito nets to be sold with hefty discounts, aimed at providing protection to pregnant Tanzanian women and their infants and young children